For a Season
by Spoiled Sweet
Summary: As far as Sakura's concerned, she has more than a paycheck coming to her after being personally requested by the Mizukage and shipped off to Mist as part of a diplomatic deal. After all, a team of painfully green medics is one thing, but she draws a line at tetchy, old hunter-nin. Crack, character study, crack, friendship, and crack.
1. Arrival

**For a Season  
**

**Part 1  
**

* * *

"How are you holding up?

"I'm fine." Sakura huddled deeper in her cloak as she released a heavy sigh. She had not been in Water Country for five minutes and she felt soaked to the bone by the heavy, humid air that was still quite chilled as the sun had yet to even rise.

Crossing the channel at night had been a dangerous prospect, but there weren't many passenger transports that went between Fire and Water no matter the time of day and they had a rendezvous to make. Their only recourse were the captains of the cargo ships, who were crusty, disagreeable types that all seemed to have something against both ninja and the idea of common courtesy. Sakura was more than a little grateful for the ANBU detail flanking her and her team or they may have never been able to negotiate a reasonable fare.

"Take this."

She smiled at the red scarf that was slipped into her hand and glanced up into the masked face of the ANBU Captain beside her. His hood was pulled up to hide his hair, which was as much a dead giveaway as hers, but she knew the rounded slouch of his shoulders well enough to know him by extension. "Thank you, Hound."

Clumsily, she began to fish the scarf up under her cloak. It was a nice little memento and would be a small comfort while in Water Country. She sighed miserably as she stared out at the harbor and what she could make of the town built up around it, both of which were almost entirely obscured by the rolling clouds of mist that enshrouded the island as a whole. For approximately the nine-hundredth time, she swore that Tsunade so totally owed her more than a paycheck for her cooperation.

"Sakura-senpai?"

She turned as she was tying the scarf into place. "What is it?"

Udon approached her, sparing a backwards glance at the others of their team. There were twelve in total; all of them medics and all of them at least four years her junior and none of them ranking above Chuunin. It disturbed her briefly how young they all seemed and looked to her right then. Young and cold and terrified, as well they should be because they were in Water Country. She had fought with Tsunade for _hours_ trying to get medics with more combat and field experience assigned, but to no avail. What made it worse was that Tsunade had the same misgivings and had apologized again and again for the arrangement, but nothing could be done. It was getting to be spring in Leaf, which meant an influx of missions. An influx of missions meant outgoing teams in need of medics to accompany them and since her team was "not expected to engage in combat", she got the short straw.

Sakura really wish that the Council would leave her and her squad out of their petty political games.

"When are they coming?" the boy asked, his arms folded under his cloak. "If we stand outside in this damp much longer _we_ will be the ones in need of medical care."

"Advise your subordinates that whining isn't very becoming of any shinobi. Even Leaf-Nin."

Hound didn't turn to acknowledge the voice, but Sakura and Udon did and the woman scowled upon spotting the approaching Mist ANBU. Like the hunter-nin of the island, they wore long robes over their armor, which was just visible from beneath folded collar, but their masks were painted with blue instead of red. Unlike Leaf ANBU there was no distinguishable animal motif, but the four, wavy lines etched into the foreheads of each mask made it very clear where they belonged.

Udon shot Sakura a narrow, annoyed look and followed on her heels as she stepped forward to greet the men. She bowed shortly and the boy mirrored her. "ANBU-san, I am Haruno Sakura the chief medic and head of this squad. This is Sanuki Udon, my second."

The leader surveyed the group quietly and Sakura noted with some trepidation the slightly defensive stances taken by the Leaf ANBU in response; the way they stepped forward to place themselves as much between the Mist-nin and the medical squad as they could. Hound hovered nearby with one hand held out in a quiet, subtle signal for his men to hold.

"Hn… I never enjoy being demoted to babysitting."

Udon, not so subtly, pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his middle finger and Sakura gently nudged him as she turned on the others. "Everyone, get ready to move."

She turned then to Hound as Udon stepped away to oversee the others.

"Make sure the boys don't kill each other while I'm away," Sakura said with a wide smile as she adjusted her backpack. "I'll be reporting to Tsunade at the end of every week, so I'll go ahead and try to get a letter to you and the boys too."

Hound nodded and was just about to turn away when he paused. "Six months?"

Sakura took a breath and nodded. "Six months."

With another, short nod he moved to rejoin the other ANBU as the medical team stepped forward with their packs across their shoulders and their hoods protectively pulled up over their heads. Sakura did a quick head count and then ushered them to move ahead of her.

This, Sakura thought, was a nightmare. The first mission on which she had to lead a team had to be to Mist and it had to involve twelve other lives. She felt nauseous. Leading wasn't her area of expertise and while they would be looking to her for protection and stability, she was just as nervous and sickened by the idea of six months in Mist as any of them.

Tsunade definitely owed her more than a paycheck for this.

* * *

The mission was a relatively simple one. In order to strengthen the bonds between Leaf and Mist (since Mei and Tsunade getting smashed together once a year didn't really count), requests were made by each. Mist, having apparently won the political version of rock, paper, scissors or however such things were decided, was allowed to draw first blood and detailed a problem with their village's medical capabilities. They were sorely lacking skilled medics or any semblance of order in their hospital and they requested that Leaf help them amend this. Mizukage-sama had, apparently, named a preference for Sakura specifically.

Sakura was flattered at having been hand-picked and she knew enough to place the blame for that particular honor squarely on Tsunade's shoulders. The woman was a notorious talker when drunk.

"Sakura-senpai."

She looked to Udon, who had fallen behind the pack to fall in beside her. The Mist ANBU were keeping their little group herded in a cluster that they surrounded on all sides, which Sakura appreciated. She would've appreciated it more if they'd also resist the temptation to bully her subordinates by barking at them whenever they got the slightest bit out of formation, but she'd ignore that. For the moment.

"What is it, Udon?"

The boy looked annoyed. Hell, they were _all_ annoyed. And half-drowned. No wonder Mist-nin were so cranky all the time. She was damp to her bones and it felt like she'd never be dry again. "Everyone's exhausted," he said plainly. "No one here is accustomed to this climate, soon our elevation will begin to increase, and it's a fair bet that no one slept last night. We need a rest."

She looked to the nearest Mist ANBU, who was almost twenty yards to her right and flickering in and out of sight between the damp, blowing foliage of the canopy. "I don't think that's on their schedule."

"At this rate, we'll be of no use when we get to the village," Udon replied.

Sakura sighed and let her pace falter, falling back from the boy and the group to the ANBU in the very rear of the pack—the captain, if she was correct about the white trim of his collar.

"What's the matter, Leaf?"

She blinked at the man as she fell in beside him. That was… bizarrely friendly. Not that it gave her the warm fuzzies or anything, but she'd take anything that wasn't a barked order or frosty silence at this point. "My people are exhausted from their journey here," she began. "Most of them were pulled directly off shifts as our hospital and haven't slept in more than a day."

"How is that my problem?"

Sakura narrowed her eyes. "They're about to fall asleep on their feet and your men will be responsible for carrying them into the village if they do: that's how."

He spared a glance her way, indicated by the slight cant of his mask towards her. "Do they really baby you like that in Leaf?"

She scowled at him. She was tired, wet, and in no mood to be jerked around. Huffing air through her nose, she kicked off of the next branch with just enough force so as to land on the next just ahead of the Captain and snap it with chakra-shrouded feet.

This sent them both careening down to the forest floor, where they landed in the muck and mud with damp _plops_.

The Captain and Sakura both got to their feet and while he drew a kunai she was attempting to wring the water from her hair. A combined choir of medics and ANBU chorused a shout of "Captain!" from overhead.

"What the hell was that?" the man demanded, his cold stoicism giving away to audible anger and she realized in that second how _young_ he actually sounded.

Sakura flipped her hair back over her shoulder and fixed him with a cold look. "Clumsy me. Sorry about that," she replied dismissively. She looked up to the damp canopy overhead and whistled for her team before turning again to the Captain. "Are you hurt?"

"Of course not," he scoffed, sounding even more like a child and convincing Sakura that if he was in fact younger than her, he had a tirade coming about respect. "I don't know what sort of stunt that was but—"

"I don't have time to be lectured," she cut in with a flap of her hand. "I have an exhausted team to attend to. I promise that we'll be on our way again shortly."

She turned away from him then and made a beeline for Udon as he landed on a nearby buttress root, which she leapt easily onto to stand beside him. They watched in silence as the other ANBU, with the exception of the handful that lurked in the canopy to secure a perimeter around them, gathered around the captain. "_That_," Udon began, "Is not what I meant."

"You wanted to stop and we've stopped," she replied, reaching under her cloak for her pack and removing a leather pouch. "I don't see the problem."

Udon's face turned a peculiar shade of exasperated red in response.

Sakura smiled. "It'll be okay, Udon," she whispered. "That's the advantage of diplomatic immunity."

"I distinctly remember a lecture on never taking advantage of immunity," the boy protested. "Do you remember when we were in Suna? You argued with Gaara-sama for twenty minutes about whether or not we deserved special treatment."

"Yes, but that was totally different," she replied as she undid the ties of the bag and removed a single soldier pill.

"How's that?" Udon demanded.

Sakura smiled and forced the pill into Udon's mouth. "I _like_ Gaara-sama."

He made a face as he crushed the pill with his teeth. "I just think that it's a little early to be making enemies," he replied. He was visibly distressed by the taste and eventually slapped a hand over his mouth to refrain from spitting the pill out. "You really need to refine this recipe, Senpai."

She ruffled his hair gently and shook a handful of the pills out into her palm and then handed him the bag. "Make sure the others get one a piece," she said. "I'm going to go make peace with the natives."

Udon made another face unrelated to the taste of the pill. "Well, you don't have to go _overboard_."

"But you're right," she replied. "If they don't like me or trust me they won't let me, or any of you, treat them later on and that's going to totally void the point of our coming here."

Before he could argue, Sakura hopped down from the buttress root and landed atop the muck below, hoping that this whole "swamp" scenario was not going to be a recurring motif of the landscape. She already hated this mission enough and the idea of having to traipse through wetland wastelands was not boosting her morale.

"Gentlemen."

Six white masks turned in unison to look at her, which was, quite frankly, intimidating as hell.

Steeling herself, Sakura straightened and then offered out the hand holding the soldier pills. "Back there," she began with a vague gesture and her eyes focused exclusively on the Captain, "That was a little sloppy on your part. I mean, I know the standards that Leaf has for their ANBU must pale in comparison to Mist's, so for me to trip you up there would have to be something hindering you. How long have you been on duty? A few days? Maybe a week or more? Odds are you were the closest team to the harbor and that's why you were sent to meet us, but I'm guessing that this will be the first time any of you have been back to the village in a while."

There was no response, but Sakura didn't waver. It was conjecture, pure and simple, but it was not impossible. If the statistics were correct, Leaf had more ninja than Mist and even they at times were ran ragged trying to complete missions. She couldn't imagine how Mist managed to complete missions, control their criminal population, and protect their village with so few hands available _without_ driving their men to exhaustion.

Of course the fact that the village did manage all of these things somewhat justified the Captain's dig about Leaf babying their ninja.

It also brought Mist's infamous defection rate into a clearer light.

"These are soldier pills. A special, Leaf recipe," she went on. "They'll give you enough energy to fight for three days and three nights straight… or they'll at least get you back to the village standing on your own two feet." She lifted one from her palm, making it a point to show it to them all, and then popped into her mouth before crushing it with an audible, open-mouthed _crunch_. "So, do I have any takers?"

Stony silence met her but she found herself already regaining the will to dismiss it as energy flooded her tiring limbs.

"Tell you what," she began again, reaching out to the ANBU closest to her and taking his hand before he could pull away. She dropped the pills into the palm of his glove. "You guys think about it. I have to attend to my people."

Sakura flipped them a salute and turned away to march back across the marsh, where her team seemed to have been waiting with baited breath as they all released a collective sigh when she was within "safe" distance. She smiled cheerfully and then knelt down next to one of the youngest of the group. Suki was a fresh from the exams chuunin with wide, violet-blue eyes and long, lank brown hair.

"What are they doing?" she asked in a whisper as she reached out to heal a cut on the girl's cheek, likely acquired from a branch lashing her in the face.

The girl blinked and then with all of the subtlety of her age, looked at the ANBU. "I can't tell."

"Ugh," one of the other girls, Midori, sighed with audible frustration. She was taller, closer to fifteen, and one of Sakura's better students. She was also blatantly staring at the Mist team. "One of them, who I'm guessing is the bitch, is acting like the guinea pig. He just put it in his mouth. And now he's choking."

A giggle chorused through the group but was silenced by a stern look from Udon.

Sakura finished Suki's cheek and patted the girl on the head as she got back to her feet. "How's everyone?" she asked.

Various complaints made the rounds but there was a general consensus that they all at least _felt_ better, though not drier or warmer.

She smiled and helped Suki back to her feet before turning to look at the ANBU team, folding her arms as she did so. "We're good to go," she called to them, feeling a bit smug. It was the best she had felt all day.

* * *

Upon arriving in the village, Sakura had to admit that she was impressed. From what she could see of Mist, which admittedly wasn't much since the abundant, low-lying clouds of dense fog severely limited visibility, it was actually a rather impressive place. Impressive if a bit incredibly inconveniently located. From the gates through the streets, she occupied herself with thanking every deity in heaven for soldier pills because the trek _up_ would have brought her to her knees otherwise.

In short, she had gotten her wish. With relative swiftness, the swamps had been left behind to be replaced by craggy and treacherous mountains. Indeed, the pioneering peoples of Water Country had been ballsy (and not particularly bright if you asked Sakura) to decide to lay claim to these cliffs. She was pretty sure that she would have just given up and found a different island to settle.

A burly guard with a truly manly beard greeted them at the tower entrance, eyeing their headbands with skepticism as he nodded them through.

In fact, all of Mist had a severe staring problem as everyone they had passed, first in the streets and now in the tower, stared.

Sakura ignored them.

Udon gave them dirty looks.

Two of the young medics made faces and were promptly cuffed by Udon.

On an upper floor, the ANBU detail left them and a young chuunin approached them. He was as thin as a rail and reminded Sakura of a younger version of one of the Leaf counselors who Naruto had always claimed reminded him of an oil slick.

"Honored visitors," he greeted with a curt nod and a tone that gave Sakura the impression that they were all suddenly being talked down to. "Your rooms are this way."

Udon and Sakura shared a look but followed.

The medics were divided three to a room, except Sakura who was given her own two room suite. She smiled apologetically at Udon, who had been stuck with the only two boys of the group. He shook his head in a good-natured attempt to pretend that he wouldn't have preferred disemboweling himself. He insisted that he didn't understand boys that age anymore and denied that he had ever been so young as to find basic parts of the anatomy funny.

It was at these times that Sakura gleefully reminded him of the harem jutsu.

"Haruno, if you would please step this way, Mizukage-sama has requested to see you immediately after you were settled."

Sakura gaped at the chuunin. "I'm not settled." She hadn't even had a chance to wring the water out of her hair!

He stared owlishly at her. "I'm sorry, but she should not be kept waiting."

And she was not about to step foot in the official office of any Kage looking like a drowned rat. She had laughed herself hoarse once when Kankuro had showed up in Tsunade's office with smeared paint and she was not about to climb aboard that particular boat. "If you could give me just ten minutes…?"

The chuunin stared at her and then heaved an enthusiastically pained and exasperated sigh that spoke volumes of how much he did not like her right then. "_Fine_."

Sakura dashed into her room. Udon followed her in and bolted the door shut.

"I want to go home," he announced, watching nonplussed as the woman stripped with one hand and emptied her entire pack onto the floor with the other. She then threw herself onto a scroll and a set of dry underwear before hurtling herself across the room. "Let's defect. It wouldn't be anything new for them. We'll tell Tsunade-sama that they turned on us at the gate."

"Where's my brush!"

Udon kicked aside a hideous orange jumper, a tasteless black half-shirt, and a raggedy jounin sweater before coming up with the much needed item just in time for Sakura to rush back into the room wearing just her bindings and panties. She snatched it from him and was off again.

There were men in Konoha who would have paid for the snapshot of that image.

Udon would have paid to instill some modesty in his senpai, who had obviously been so long removed from caring about such things when among her teammates that she felt just as comfortable around him. The cherry red his face turned didn't earn him any sympathy either.

"Senpai, I…" He trailed off, blinking when Sakura reappeared wearing a plain red dress that skimmed her knees over a black sweater with her usual boots, gloves, and hip pouch. She carried her white jounin vest under one arm as she fussed with her ponytail. "How did you get changed so fast?"

"Oh please, Ino and I have wrestled ourselves into kimonos in under ten minutes," she replied with a flap of her hand. She blinked at him. "You should have changed too."

"I will."

Sakura smirked a little. "When?" she asked and shrugged into her vest. "You're on your way to the hospital as far as I'm concerned."

Udon blinked. "Senpai!" he protested, dogging her out of the room. "I'm exhausted!"

"So am I," she replied. "I'm sorry, Udon. I planned to go myself to make the initial assessment, but I have this meeting now." She rolled her eyes. "I don't even know what the point is. I wasn't going to speak to the Mizukage until I had something to say to her about the hospital."

"Does it have to be done yet today?" he asked with clear reluctance.

"While we have daylight left," Sakura said. "The more we do today the less time we waste tomorrow."

* * *

Mei looked amused.

Ao did not share her sentiments. Not that what the ANBU was reporting wasn't an entertaining little thought—if a little hard to believe—but he had principles and this _bitching_ violated every one of them. He wondered moodily how best to go about explaining, without stepping on Mei's toes, that he was very sorry the little Leaf girl had scared him and that maybe the rank of captain was too high a call for him and his fragile state of mind to fulfill.

Mei shot him a knowing smirk, her hair obscuring her eyes just a little from his angle and he looked heavenward in exasperation. Her smirk grew and she looked again to the ANBU Captain standing at attention in front of her, having finished his report.

"Did you catch her name?" Mei wondered.

The captain was rightly taken aback by this. "I did not, ma'am. Forgive me."

"Hm. Damn," she murmured.

"Is there someone in particular that you are expecting, Mizukage-sama?" Ao asked because he could detect a prompt when one was given.

Mei didn't answer. Instead she looked to the door and a second later someone knocked on it from the outside. "Come in," she called.

A chuunin stepped inside and ducked into a bow. "Lady Mizukage."

She stared at the top of his head expectantly. "Well?"

"The head medic from Konohagakure has arrived."

Mei brightened. "Oh? Well, bring her in!"

He scuttled backwards without straightening and a moment later a young woman entered.

Ao knew better than to judge by appearance. He had lived too long and had seen too much to be fooled by something as shallow as looks. After all, traps never _looked_ like traps if the job was done right. Even so, he was taken aback by the girl. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting from a "head medic", but this girl (and she couldn't have been anything more than that—a _kid_) was not it. She bowed low, her ridiculous pink hair swinging forward and then back when she straightened again, her hands clasped behind her. She was petite and slender, unremarkable in everything except her unusual coloring, the amber-colored rhombus embedded at the center of her forehead, and the unusual intensity of her aura.

She certainly was not someone he expected to trouble an ANBU captain in any significant fashion.

"I'm sorry," she said, glancing between the Captain and the Mizukage. "Am I interrupting?"

"Of course not," Mei replied. "We were just finishing."

Ao glared at the Captain and then looked at the medic again. "Tell me," he began, earning a curious look, "Has Leaf discovered anything that might balm wounded pride?"

For just a moment the girl looked confused by this, but then glanced at the Captain and quickly looked away again. "Ah… no."

Mei smiled indulgently at the ANBU, her chin propped on the back of one hand. "I thank you," she said. "You're dismissed."

Ao made a mental note to have a talk to the ANBU as a collective. Apparently they needed to be refreshed on what was expected of them as the elite of Mist and that if any of them found themselves ill-equipped to handle such trifling problems as a perturbed young girl, they were encouraged to turn in their masks and whatever dignity they had remaining.

He was distracted from this thought by Mei, who had risen to her when the ANBU had turned and as soon as the door closed behind the man, she practically _pranced_ around her desk and embraced the girl in a crushing hug. "Sakura-chan!" she chirped. "I'm so happy that you could make it!"

The girl's hands hovered uselessly at her sides, apparently not sure whether to return the embrace or attempt an escape. "You know me?" she wheezed out.

Mei laughed and released the medic. "Of course," she replied, lifting a hand and playfully poking the gemstone in the girl's forehead. "You're Tsunade's apprentice. I've heard a lot about you." She smiled. "I hope your journey here was pleasant."

The medic made a face behind the woman's back that Ao lifted an eyebrow at. "It was… fine."

Ao caught Mei's eye and she smiled, amused by the lie. "I heard that there was a little bit of trouble along the way," she said as she lowered herself into her desk chair. She beckoned the girl closer with a crooked finger. "I heard that you handled it quite promptly."

The medic's cheeks pinked. "Ah, Mizukage-sama, I'd like to apologize for that. Please do not let my behavior reflect on my village or my team."

Mei nodded. "Just as long as you promise not to allow my captain's behavior to reflect on _my_ village." She smiled, again. "Deal?"

The girl looked visibly relieved by this and smiled too. "Deal."

Mei hummed and then looked up at Ao, who raised an eyebrow expecting and order. "Ao, this is Haruno Sakura," the woman said. "Sakura-chan, this is Ao, my bodyguard and counselor."

He nodded at the girl, earning a nod in return.

"He'll be accompanying you during your stay in Mist."

Ao did what he could not to react to this. He had tried to block it from his memory that he was being demoted to babysitting.

Haruno's eyebrows lifted to meet her hairline. "Mizukage-sama—"

"Mei. Call me Mei, Sakura-chan."

"Mei-sama, I am perfectly capable of protecting myself. This is completely unnecessary."

Mei smiled. "Possibly," she agreed with a nod. "Still, Ao will accompany you."

Haruno opened her mouth again, possibly to protest, but stopped short when Mei stood again and moved around the desk to lean her weight into it.

"So," she began, "I'd like to see your particular talents for myself."

The medic lifted an eyebrow. "Are you injured in some way, Mei-sama?"

"No, but Ao is."

Ao really wished she'd just leave him out of this.

"Ao, come here."

He rolled his eyes and moved to join her in front of the desk, shooting the Leaf-nin a bored look before rolling up his right sleeve and revealing a bandage wound tightly around his forearm. It'd been a careless mistake on his part, the result of underestimating an opponent armed with some exceptionally powerful fire techniques that he had not been able to overpower.

Haruno stepped forward, pulling her gloves off and tucking them away in her hip pouch before nearing the desk. Ao watched her curiously as she ducked around to the side of the desk and grabbed a waste paper basket filled with furiously crumbled up documents. She placed it in front of Ao and then guided his arm over it. She blurred through a series of hand seals then and with one delicate swipe of a glowing fingertip over the bandages, they were cut clean and fell away into the trash.

Mei's eyebrows lifted at this. "What was that?"

"Chakra scalpel," the medic murmured, sounding distracted as she began inspecting the burn. She sounded far away, distracted. "How old is this burn?"

"Two days."

"Who treated it?"

"I did," Ao replied.

She glanced up at him and then back to the wound. "Hm."

"Hm?" Mei looked curious.

"If one of your medics had done this I'd never let them near another patient."

Mei laughed outright and Ao eye the top of the very pink head in front of him. He was not a fan of criticism, especially not coming from some _kid_. However, she ignored him and made a few more hand seals. A green glow engulfed her right hand, which she then placed over the burn, her skin not quite making contact with his.

It was a strange sensation that Ao recalled only vaguely. It'd been a long time—years maybe—since he had allowed a medic to tend to him, generally not trusting those at hospital to be trained any better than he was. He'd heard horror stories about medics with less than precise control doing more harm than good.

It reminded him of Haruno's trick with the bandages. He had to give her credit for one thing: he sure as fuck couldn't do that. He didn't know anyone in Mist that could.

He watched with interest as the wound began to fast forward itself through the healing process, the burned flesh eventually giving away to healthy and unmarked skin within just minutes.

"Did you debride the tissue yourself?" Haruno asked as the last bits of the wound closed and vanished.

Ao shifted his weight and pulled his hand back when she released his wrist. "I did."

"Hm."

He wanted to ask what exactly that _meant_, but he held his tongue. With any luck she'd always be so inclined toward silence.

Suddenly his arm was seized by Mei and Ao dug his heels into the floor in an attempt to not be pulled straight off his feet by the woman's beastly strength. She examined his arm with interest and then gave him a look. He didn't see it often. Being a woman in possession of two bloodline limits, Mei was a tough sell when it came to talent but she was clearly impressed by what she saw here. If he'd allow himself to do so, he would have to admit to the same. He didn't know much about medics, but from his memory none of theirs had ever been able to heal anyone as quickly as that and with so little effort.

Mei seemed to read his thoughts. "Can all of your medics heal as fast as you, Sakura-chan?" she asked, turning back to the girl.

Haruno had fallen back a few paces, her hands behind her back. "To be honest, no. My medics in particular are… inexperienced." She visibly hesitated, chewing over her next words before pressing forward with: "Mizukage-sama—"

"_Mei_," Mei corrected insistently as she returned to her seat and flapped a hand at Ao, who stepped back into the background again.

"Mei-sama," Haruno said, ducking her head in apology, "I feel that I must tell you now before too many expectations are heaped upon them that my team is very green. Many of them are still genin with little to no field experience. Frankly, this assignment is over their heads and I apologize if we do not perform as expected, but I ask too that you be patient. It is what it is."

Mei made a soft noise in reply and Ao caught her eye when she looked his way again. "I am not unfamiliar with political games, Sakura-chan. It's an unfortunate consequence of negotiations; villages always feel the need to throw their weight around when they can," she said. She shifted in her seat to drape her legs delicately over one arm of her chair as she rested her back against the other. "For whatever it is worth, I am sorry that your team was placed in the middle of this one. As for their performance, I'm not concerned. Konoha's medical capabilities far outstrip our own so even your most green medic is more than likely to outshine our staff."

Haruno smiled at this and bowed again. "Thank you, Mei-sama. I hope we perform to your expectations."

Mei hummed softly, a noise that her husky voice turned nearly into a purr as she evaluated the girl. "Sake?" she proposed.

"You will have to forgive me, ma'am, but no. I sent my second to begin evaluating the conditions at the hospital and I really should go assist him," the Leaf replied evenly.

"After your journey? You should be resting," Mei argued, her lips pursing tightly in a frown. "I can't have anything happen to Tsunade's prized student. She would never forgive me."

Haruno smiled. "Tsunade would grind me into dust if she thought I was slacking off while there was still daylight. Sake or no," she replied. "You'll have my full assessment of the hospital and my ideas for bettering the situation before the end of the day tomorrow. Please, excuse me now, Mei-sama."

She bowed and without another word departed.

Mei watched the doors closed and then began to smile. "What do you think?"

Ao hummed. "She's young," he said and he reflexively braced himself because age was always such a sensitive thing with Mei.

But the woman didn't react beyond nodding her agreement and he relaxed. "Talented," she added. "You don't see chakra control like that very often."

"Young," he repeated because it was the one thing that stood out.

Mei glanced at him and smirked. "Ageist," she teased.

"That implies that I have feelings one way or the other about her," Ao replied. "And I don't. It's just something to keep in mind. The men might not take kindly to her."

"The patients or the staff?"

"Both."

Mei made a quiet noise in agreement. "True." She turned her chair toward him. "Ao, you know how important her success is to the village."

He snorted and sidled closer to the desk, his arms falling to his sides. "Of course I do."

"Then you'll help her if she needs it?"

"Mei, I'm not a—"

"A babysitter, I know." She sighed. "Consider it a favor for an old teammate."

Ao eyed her, even as she tipped her head back and smiled at him in that way that made an embarrassing number of men forget themselves. "Fine," he muttered.

Mei reached out a hand to him. "Thank you."

He rolled his eyes and then for a second took her hand and squeezed before releasing it just as quickly. "Spoiled brat," he threw over his shoulder.

She let out a bark of surprised laughter and he moved for the doorway.

* * *

1. Rest assured that I have NO idea what I'm doing. This is basically the bastard child of my love for random side characters and my love of snark meeting and having dirty, sweaty sex.

2. On that note: I love Ao. And Mei. And basically everyone they've ever introduced from Mist. Its history is actually very neatly fleshed out and very dramatic for being so rarely mentioned. It's one of those rare occasions where I actually enjoy Kishi's writing. We're talking, like, unicorn rare here.

3. As for the characters in question: I made Mei and Ao old teammates because it seemed to fit to me-why he's her bodyguard, why he lets her smack him around (and it is very clearly 'lets' because dude is badass and he should be able to fend off a slap or two if he wanted), and because I just wanted it that way, all right? I also erased the little running gag of Mei freaking out over her age. Truth be told, it really isn't that funny (not even with cultural context considered) and it seems juvenile. I prefer to think of Mei as a bratty teen-aged girl, a femme fatale, and a total badass all rolled up together in one character rather than just an infantile Christmas Cake-that really, really tired trope you see pop up now and then in anime.

4. Yes, Sakura has her Yin Seal and I think I want to clear something up here: the Yin Seal is simply a means of storing a massive amount of extra chakra. From what I understand, it's required for the regeneration technique that Tsunade uses, but that isn't its sole purpose. I imagine you could use it just to replenish your chakra.

5. Yes, Udon is once again her assistant. No, I'm not going to let that go. Is this set in Blind Spots continuity? Not at all. I just really like that set up.

6. This is labelled romance and in all honesty, I'm adding that as a "just in case" sort of thing. Right now, all I have planned is the barest, tiniest, ittiest bit of UST. But I don't trust me and neither should you, so consider the label fair warning.

**Now, here is where I ask you to do your part: review. I hate asking so point-blank, but in this case it's particularly important, because I want to know what you guys think of this. It's something I think is completely new and I'd like to know that others are on board with me.**


	2. Hostile Takeovers

**For a Season  
**

**Chapter 2  
**

* * *

Sakura didn't know what to say or how to react. So, she just kept moving, making her way through the large room that was partitioned off by beds and flimsy screens into smaller, private areas for patient care.

She couldn't breathe in here. The air was heavy and stale and filled with the odors of blood and _death_. It made her feel sick. She paused to inspect a tray of instruments and thanked the gods for small miracles that they at least _looked_ sterile, though how that was possible in this environment was a wonder unto itself. Her boots stuck to the floor and there were obvious splatter patterns on a handful of walls where someone's artery had ruptured and left its mark.

The rest of the hospital hadn't been as bad—wretched, sure, with ancient equipment ran by even older relics of a bygone age who no doubt still put stock in blood lettings and hysterical paroxysm. But this? This was _vile_. And it was the emergency ward.

Ao hovered silently behind her, stony-faced and unaffected by the sights and smells. He had obviously expected this since there was no other way to remain so apathetic in this place, which would have horrified every other veteran medic she knew. She didn't even want to look at the patients: the people being subjected to this insult of a hospital.

"Sakura-san."

A hand suddenly grabbed her arm and she looked up, blinking and realizing vaguely tha she was actually dizzy. "Oh, Chojuro-kun," she said in faint recognition of the bespectacled swordsman. He was taller than she remembered, but then again it had been a long time since their last meeting. "You're not wounded, are you?"

"No, but one of my teammates was," he replied, flashing the sharpened edges of his teeth as he spoke. She had seen that sort of dental anatomy a handful of times when dealing with Mist-nin. Maybe it was a genetic anomaly? How interesting, but it was for another time. "I was on a mission. When did you arrive?"

Sakura's eyes wandered to a body splayed in a bed on her right. It was a young boy and he was breathing heavily. His cheeks were heavily flushed and his skin appeared slick with sweat. A flak vest and robe were draped over the foot of the bed and a collection of holstered weapons and scrolls were stored underneath on the floor. There wasn't a medic in sight. "This morning," she murmured and she wandered away from Choujuro to sit on the edge of the boy's cot.

A pair of blue eyes wandered over to meet hers. They were glazed and feverish. "Who are you?" the man whispered.

"Sakura," she replied softly. "What happened?"

He blinked at her a few times. He looked so young, maybe younger than Choujuro—younger than her even—but his hands were the weathered, battered hands of a veteran. She took one and began to massage it with chakra in an attempt to soothe him. He said nothing.

"What happened?" she asked again. "Why are you here?"

"Wounded."

"Where?"

He blinked at her again and his free hand shifted to rest over his abdomen. "Kunai," he added.

"Who are you? Get away from my patient."

Sakura spared a fleeting glance at the man hovering over her, wearing what appeared to be general issue clothing under a blood-splattered apron. He was closer to Ao's age, with a deeply furrowed brow and the same strange dental anatomy as Choujuro. "My name is Haruno Sakura, I'm the head medic from Leaf," she replied as she worked the patient's shirt up to his chest, uncovering a large bandage that she easily peeled away. She curled her nose in disgust at what lay underneath. Opened wounds were always treated with ninjutsu in Leaf. It limited the risk of exposure to infection. "How old is this wound?"

"I don't see why I need to answer to you," the medic snapped back.

"In a few days I'll be evaluating your worth to this hospital," she replied calmly as she placed both hands over the wound and summoned her chakra. "Cooperating with me won't ensure your permanency here, but I will be nicer if I decide to fire you."

The medic looked stricken at this. "He was brought in an hour ago," he said, begrudgingly. "And for the record, I don't care who you are. You can't barge in here and start tampering with other medics' patients. Have a little respect for our intelligence! We may not have the same pedigree as Leaf medics, but we don't need you hovering over us and second guessing the work we do!"

Sakura narrowed her eyes. "Believe me, I'll be doing a lot more than just second-guessing your work," she retorted. "But let's assume that you're as smart as you say. That means that you knew that this boy was suffering from an infection _and_ still hemorrhaging internally. If we're assuming that, it seems to me that you need to be reassigned somewhere where you're less likely to place a patient's life at risk because of your own careless ineptitude. Perhaps you could mop the floors? That doesn't appear to have been done this century. The mortality rate would probably drop drastically as a result. Speaking of which, what is your mortality rate here?"

The medic hesitated. "I'm not sure."

She made another throaty noise. "You've said more than enough right there. Not knowing means that you gave up calculating it," she replied. "Choujuro, do me a favor?"

The swordsman stepped forward. "What is it?"

"Find my assistant, Udon—your height, seventeen-ish, graying hair, glasses, wearing a white vest like mine. He'll probably be in a corner somewhere having a small fit about the sanitation. Tell him that I need the others on duty now." She glanced at the medic on her right when Choujuro darted off after receiving a nod from Ao. "Who is the head medic around here?"

"I am!"

"Oh gods, preserve us," Sakura sighed. She stood up from the cot and then hopped up onto the nearest table so that she could look over the entire room before sticking two fingers in her mouth and whistling so loudly that everyone turned to look. "Listen up, everyone! Consider this a hostile takeover by Leaf. I am your new head medic and you will all be answering to me from now on. If you are currently attempting to heal anything bigger than a paper-cut, I want to be notified immediately! If you fail to do so or if you would like to argue with me, please just consider yourself removed from duty and save me the time. Thank you!"

She hopped down easily and turned again to the flabbergasted, former head medic. "Please administer _my_ patient some antibiotics, assuming you can do that without further risking his life. I've stopped the bleeding for the moment, but one of my medics will see to finishing the procedure. Now excuse me, I need to find a clean apron." She looked to Ao as she charged by him. "No wonder you treat your own wounds."

* * *

Haruno had the entire hospital turned on its ear inside an hour. At the same time that she was handling the insanity of the emergency room, she was aggressively weeding out medics she considered incapable or dangerous while those that showed promise were assigned, two or three a piece, to one of her own medics. Even the youngest Leaf-nin, a scant twelve-years-old, was given someone to lead around by the nose. Anyone who didn't like this system was verbally savaged by the young woman, who dressed them down with admirable gusto.

Ao had mixed feelings about this. On one hand, he was genuinely impressed. This was clearly her element and all of those things that Mei had heard about her were looking to be quite true. On the other hand, Haruno had thrown an apron in his face as she stalked passed, her hair up and her own apron covered in bloody smears: "Put yourself to good use or get out of my ER."

"What do you propose I do?"

She stopped abruptly and turned to face him. "Mop the floors? Hell, mop the _ceilings_—I don't _care_, but don't stand there getting under foot. You could even go report to the Mizukage and tell her that this place is a hellhole and that the wounded would be better off left to die than brought into this house of horrors."

He snorted. "That's your official statement?"

"As official as it will get. What I really want to say would get me sanctioned by my village for using inappropriate language while communicating with a superior," she retorted.

"Senpai!"

Haruno turned sharply at the screech and was off like a shot, following quickly by Ao. He knew that sort of fear and panic by pitch alone.

They found one of the younger medics standing at the far side of a bed away from a patient, who was slumped onto the floor against the wall. His right leg was badly injured—burned if Ao had to guess by the scent alone—and he was clutching a kunai as if to fend the nurse off.

"He was unconscious until just a second ago!" the girl explained hastily. "Now, he won't let me anywhere near him!"

Haruno sighed and shooed the girl away with a hand. "Fetch a warm blanket and gown for him," she said. "And a burn kit."

The girl nodded and scuttled off and Haruno circled around the other side of the bed toward the boy and knelt just out of striking distance. "I am a Jounin and I specialize in close-quarters combat—armed or otherwise," she said. "Put down the kunai or I will take it from you and I cannot guarantee that I won't break something of yours in the process."

The shinobi stared at her with bleary eyes and Ao vaguely thought he might recognize him as a chuunin. It was a tough call as he never took the time to familiarize himself with anyone if he could avoid it. "I won't let you take it," he whispered, his voice hoarse.

Haruno raised an eyebrow at this. "Take what?" she asked.

"My leg."

"Your leg?" For a moment, she did not seem to know what he was talking about and then her aura suddenly exploded outward. Ao felt the sting of it on his tongue with his next breath. "An amputation?" she shrieked. "They still _do_ that here? You must joking! The last person I knew who had had something amputated had done it herself for other purposes!"

The chuunin blinked at her and while he was thus distracted she took the kunai away from him. With apparently no effort exerted whatsoever, she bent the knife and cast the warped chunk of metal off to the side before hauling the young ninja up under his arms and depositing him with little ceremony onto the bed behind her. "If you move from that spot or threaten one of my nurses again I will leave you with a limp for the rest of your life," she said pointedly.

With that she turned away and silently stalked off.

Though he was not a religious man by any means, Ao looked heavenward in a plea for patience, and then turned to follow the girl. This was the last time he was going to let Mei pull that "teammate" card on him—the absolute last time.

He found Haruno a few moments later in the hallway outside of the ER, beyond a set of double-doors. The hall was empty except for her. She was slouched on the floor with her back to the wall and one hand pressed over her eyes. He made himself comfortable against the opposite wall and crossed his arms. "I hope the thought of an amputation doesn't make you ill," he said. "It's bad enough that Leaf has sent us an entire daycare of healers to look after. The last thing we need is a head medic who gets sick at the thought of cutting off a limb."

Haruno made a sound caught somewhere being a derisive snort and a pathetic little laugh that did something to tug at his pity—a feat in itself. "This is impossible," she muttered to herself. Then she looked at him. "This place… how exactly do you become this removed from progress? This is like stepping back into the age of the First War. He honestly believed that I'd take his leg off for something as silly as a burn."

"The burn looked very severe," Ao replied.

"That hardly matters," she scoffed. "There is a jutsu that can restore it entirely, save for some minimal scarring. Amputation in Leaf is reserved for cases where the limb has been too ravaged by infection or necrosis to save. Do they really resort to it so quickly here?"

"You've seen the skill level of our medics. Do you really need me to answer that?"

Haruno shook her head. "I guess not," she muttered. She glanced over at him. "I'm likely to be here all night. There's no need for you to stay."

"I will be relieved by someone shortly."

She said nothing to this, but instead made that musical little humming noise again before resting her head back against the wall and closing her eyes.

* * *

Udon had hopes of ironing out some sort of schedule, but Sakura saw no real chance of that until they had a few more hands available. For the time, they'd simply have to improvise, so he and a handful of other medics were banished to an empty part of the hospital to rest. At three in the morning, they switched.

Upon her return to the tower, flanked by two younger jounin who had replaced Ao at some point in the night, Sakura stripped, bathed, and then collapsed in bed. She managed to catch just three precious hours of sleep before a heavy thumping at her door roused her.

A part of Sakura was deeply disappointed to realize that the previous day and indeed the entire mission had not all simply been an unusually detailed dream. For the most part, however, she was just grateful to have slept at all and grudgingly dragged herself out of bed. She scooped her robe up off the floor on her way and tied it just as she reached the door, which she opened to who recognized as that same snide, oil slick of a chuunin that had greeted her and her team yesterday morning.

"Your presence is requested in the Mizukage's office in one hour," he informed her.

She stared at him and for just one second contemplated reaching out and spitefully punching him square in the windpipe. "I just finished a shift," she said.

If he understood her irritation he did not show it and instead turned away. "Your tea and breakfast will be brought to you shortly," he called over his shoulder.

She watched him go for a moment and then let out a long breath. "I don't suppose that you would know what this meeting is about?" she asked aloud before turning her head to look at Ao, who was approaching from the opposite direction.

He gave the barest shrug of his shoulders. "Your little display at the hospital was not well-received," he replied. "I'd put my money there."

Sakura hummed at this and then turned away, leaving her door opened for him. "You might as well come in and sit. If someone's going to attack me in the Tower they'll probably use a window like a proper ninja. If they don't, I'll be offended," she said over her shoulder. "Did you sleep well? Don't look at me like that. I'm a medic. Asking that becomes second nature after a while."

"I slept," he replied. He closed the door behind him and turned the bolt.

She smiled a bit to herself. "It's surprising how universal that response is for ninja."

Ao grunted noncommittally in response to this and then surveyed the room, critically eyeing the scrolls and books stacked on nearly every available surface flat enough to support them.

"Research," she explained as she took a seat at the low table near the large windows that looked out over Mist, though at this hour there wasn't much to look at but fog.

"Relearning your craft?" he guessed dryly.

She was a little gratified when he took a seat opposite of her. In Fire it wasn't such a big deal, but in other countries she had noticed a hesitance to sit down with foreign ninja. Although, maybe he had just decided she presented no threat to his well-being. Luckily, she was too tired to be chafed over that. "'In the grand scheme of things, there's surprisingly little to be learned from books and scrolls about being a proper medic.' That was the first thing Tsunade-sama said to me when we began training together," she replied instead. "These are about history, indigenous species of animals, and local trade as well as a few maps of the currents around the island."

"For what purpose?"

"My own."

He gave her a narrow, critical look, but Sakura ignored it in favor of the genin that entered with a tray. She ushered the young girl over and as she laid out breakfast and the tea things, Sakura asked for her name and rank and was promptly impressed to hear that this young thing was already a chuunin. The girl even seemed to forget that Ao was there long enough to cease shrinking under his scrutinizing stare. Not that Sakura blamed her. If nothing else, she had learned very quickly that the man had an absolutely bone-chilling way of looking through someone.

"Thank you very much, Yue-chan," Sakura said when the girl finished. "Will I see you again later?"

"Yes, Sakura-san."

"Good."

Yue smiled and then left. Sakura watched her go and then reached for the tea and poured herself a cup and then another for Ao, which she pushed over to him with little ceremony before getting to her feet.

One of her medics—Udon maybe—had taken the time at some point to arrange her room and she made a mental note to thank him. She had packed hundreds of herbal ingredients in scrolls, having not been entirely certain what the island would and would not have on hand, and Udon had taken it upon himself to unseal some of the more important ones and arrange them on a table in the far corner. Later she'd unpack her chemistry equipment and it'd make a nice little work area.

Sakura selected two vials of herbs and returned to the table.

Ao was watching her with a reserved sort of interest.

"If you want to ask me something, ask it," she said, shaking a bottle of ground, reddish-brown root that looked like rust shavings and then adding a pinch of them to her tea, followed by another pinch of some wiry green bits from the other vial. "Otherwise, stop looking at me like that. It's eerie as hell."

He made a muffled noise in response to this, though it was impossible to tell if he was amused or not. "You have no experience as a mission leader."

Sakura eyed him. "I'm not going to ask you how you know that because I think it'd just make you insufferable," she replied. "Also, that wasn't a question."

"I just find myself wondering why Leaf would send you."

She sipped her tea as a means of putting off the answer as she searched for the correct way to respond—and there _was_ a correct way. ANBU differed from village to village, but in her experience their core training was all more or less the same and there was always a right and wrong way to respond to their questions. "The Mizukage requested me," she said carefully. "And I'm the best—except for my mentor and her oldest student."

"So, you're the third best."

Sakura met his challenging look with a mild expression of boredom. "Eighty percent of ninja can't hack it as medics. They just don't have the right basics. Of those who try, only forty percent actually make it," she replied. "Of that fraction of a fraction, I am only bested by two people who have _years_ of experience on me, one of whom is the last of Konoha's Sannin. So, yes, I am the third best."

Ao stared at her for a moment longer before one corner of his mouth lifted just slightly in a bare resemblance of a smirk. "Fair enough," he conceded.

It was a very, very small victory, but she'd take what she could get.

* * *

"Well?" Mei prompted with a warm smile. She was sitting forward in her chair, her elbows propped on the desk and her chin resting atop her folded hands looking utterly serene.

Sakura shifted her weight a bit restlessly. Mei had dismissed both Ao and Choujuro with a simple wave of her hand, leaving them alone together. "I'm not entirely sure what to say," she replied honestly.

The Mizukage's eyes glittered with repressed amusement. "I received numerous complaints from the hospital staff last night and quite a few already this morning," she explained. "You made quite the first impression it seems."

"Tsunade has always said that you aren't making a difference if you haven't upset anyone."

Mei grinned. "So, you don't have anything to add?"

Sakura shrugged. "No, I'm sure they included everything there was to report." She hesitated a moment and then pushed on, a bit despite herself: "Mei-sama, if it's an apology you seek, I can't help you. I have a mission and a very narrow time frame in which to complete it. I will not waste that time coddling others' feelings or egos. That isn't my job. If they are willing to learn, I'll teach them. Otherwise, they are of no use to me."

Mei's brows lifted fractionally at this and Sakura's stomach dropped a little. Damn Tsunade. Damn her for encouraging that part of Sakura that just could not keep its thoughts to itself.

"So, what of the hospital?"

Sakura blinked, momentarily lost and fairly certain that she had missed something. "I'm sorry?"

"What are your thoughts on it? You said that you would have a report for me after your initial visit."

If ever asked, Sakura would blame her confusion on what came out next: "I'd have more to work with if we razed it to the ground and started fresh."

Privately, she was very, very grateful when Mei started to laugh. "Gods, you really are Tsunade's student, aren't you?"

Sakura buried her face in her hands in shame. "I am so sorry, Mizukage-sama. I'm usually better at this kind of thing. It's just that when my teammates aren't here to be rude and uncouth I apparently feel the need to compensate for their absence." She sighed and pushed her hair back with both hands. "May I be frank?"

Mei muffled the last of her giggles. "You may," she said, although it didn't escape either of them that at this point asking was a bit redundant.

The medic nodded. "The hospital… well, I hate even calling it a hospital. I've never seen conditions that bad. The staff is either poorly trained or _barely_ trained, the lack of sanitation is appalling, the equipment is older than I am, and everything, from the way the patients are triaged to how the files are handled, is such a chaotic, disorganized mess that it'd give my senpai Shizune nightmares. I'm sorry, but it is what it is."

"There's no need to apologize," the Mizukage replied with a sigh of her own. "I have never been under any kind of delusion that would lead me to believe that the conditions there are acceptable. I do ask, however, that you do not blame the staff entirely."

At Sakura's questioning look, Mei rose from her seat and moved to the windows at the far side of the office, motioning with one hand for the medic to join her as she took a seat on the ledge there beneath the sill. Outside, the fog had started to clear and between the thinning clouds Sakura could see bits and pieces of the village and the mountains that surrounded it beginning to bleed through.

"As much as I would like to simply erase it from the collective memory of the world, we still struggle with the last vestiges of Bloody Mist. Its ghost has a foothold here that it might never give up." Mei sighed. "As bad as it is now, it was far worse when I first became the Mizukage. The hospital was little more than a morgue with a relief station. The reality is that my predecessor did not care so much whether his men lived, but I have always preferred mine healthy and whole—they're more useful that way, you see." Her eyes glittered and she spared Sakura a playful, sideways glance before she turned again to look out the window. "I have done all I can and that is why you are here now. You, my dear little Leaf, are going to do something wonderful for this village."

Sakura smiled at the woman and then looked down at her hands. "I've been reading a little more about Bloody Mist. You yourself have two bloodline abilities," she began after a long pause. "I can't imagine how difficult it must have been for you in those days. Your gifts must have felt more like curses."

The woman nodded. "Some days they did," she agreed. "It wasn't all bad, though. I also made a good friend who protected me until I was strong enough to protect myself. I would not trade that for anything." She inhaled deeply and then sighed contentedly. "I do love the way it looks when sun shines on this miserable place."

It didn't—could never—compare to Leaf, but Sakura had to agree that it was a refreshing sight. The sun had finally risen above the nearest mountain peaks to the east and was shining through the remaining patches of fog, which splintered the light into shafts that spilled over the village.

"If it pleases you, Mizukage-sama—"

"Mei."

Sakura smiled to herself and nodded. "Mei-sama, if it pleases you I'd like a look through your recent graduates—preferably those with the greatest chakra control. I will work with those willing to work with me at the hospital, but it doesn't hurt to have some genin about learning it from scratch."

"A new class will graduate this coming week. You will have their names and the names of last spring's graduates as soon as possible."

"Thank you." Sakura stood up from the seat and bowed. "Please excuse me now, Mei-sama. I have duties to attend."

Mei nodded and waved a hand to dismiss her. "Tell Choujuro to come back inside, please."

The medic bowed again and made a beeline for the door.

Choujuro and Ao were leaning against the wall opposite of the doors, discussing something in quiet tones when Sakura stepped into the hall. She smiled at the swordsman when he looked to her expectantly and tipped her head toward the door. He nodded and stepped around her into the office, pulling the door closed behind him.

"So?" Ao prompted.

"Will you die of curiosity if I don't tell you?" she wondered.

He scoffed. "Hardly."

Sakura smiled and then turned to make her way back to her room.

* * *

"So how long have you been a ninja?"

Ao opened one eye to look at Haruno. He had taken up a post against one wall, his arms crossed and his head back. Up until that question, she had been humming to herself and busily unsealing various potions and powders from a number of scrolls, more or less ignoring him. It was boring actually, but a preferable alternative to the political turmoil readily found in Mei's office.

The medic was watching him now as she ground something in a stone mortar. She had changed again into a threadbare yukata that was folded loosely enough to allow a glimpse of the bindings she wore underneath. "What?" she asked. "Look, this is just day two of my mission. If you're going to be lurking around for the next six months, I'd feel better if we weren't total strangers. Indulge me."

Well, that was fair enough if maybe a little unnecessary. Then again she was from Leaf and they were prone to that kind of thing. "A little less than thirty years," he replied finally. "I was almost nine when I graduated."

She nodded. "You lived through Bloody Mist then?"

"Yeah."

"When did you become a hunter-nin?"

He sighed. This little interrogation was going to get very tedious very quickly if it was entirely one-sided the whole time. "Seventeen. When did you graduate?"

Haruno looked up at him, obviously taken aback by this. "I was twelve," she said at length. "I started to train as a medic when I was thirteen."

"With the Hokage?"

"Yes."

Well, that wasn't anything to scoff at. The Godaime Hokage's skill was renowned for a reason.

"I'm curious about hunter-nin," she admitted after a while as she emptied the contents of the mortar onto the set of scales in front of her before sweeping the granules off into a shallow, glass dish. "Leaf ANBU doesn't have an equivalent to them."

He gave a small shrug of his shoulders. "Leaf doesn't have the same missing-nin problem that Mist does. Yours just end up more infamous," he replied.

A wry sort of smile played on her lips and suddenly she didn't look quite as young as she had just a second ago. "Is it really necessary to have an entire unit dedicated to what amounts to bounty hunting and body disposal?"

"Every missing-nin carries village secrets," he said. "You're a medic. When you get a body on the slab what information can you get from it?"

"Point taken." She reached for another glass vial of something and emptied it into the stone bowl. "I once helped my team locate an enemy encampment by examining a parasite I found in a dead man's stomach."

He nodded. "A hunter-nin's job is to prevent that, among other things."

"Like the theft of bloodline limits."

The reality was that he really should have seen that coming. He glanced at her and found that she was watching him with just the barest smile playing on her lips as her hands continued to work with the pestle and mortar. Privately, he congratulated her. "That too," he agreed finally.

Haruno shrugged at his expectant look. "I'm not going to deny that I'm curious about your Byakugan."

"I'm sure you are."

She rolled her eyes. "Before those suspicions of yours start running away with your better judgment I should point out that I have no interest in destroying it. Besides, I'd have to find some way to counter those fabulous earrings of yours first." She spared him a smile and that playful look reminded him of Mei at her most dangerous. "My interest is clinical. Transplants are rare and very difficult. I'm curious who you could have gotten way the hell out here to do the job—I'd assume another hunter-nin given your training. Then there's the matter of how you even acquired it. The seals are meant to protect the servant clans from that kind of thing and I'm pretty sure there would have been a fuss raised if a main house member had gone missing."

If she thought that he was going to tell her anything, she was out of her mind. However, he was intrigued by the implications of her words. "You study bloodline limits?"

Haruno nodded as she set the pestle aside. "It's a pet project," she replied. She mixed the contents of the mortar with the other herbs she had already prepared. "It's difficult to study them with clans being so protective of their secrets, but it's necessary. Some bloodline abilities can radically alter the body's natural chakra and complicate healings. Clans tend to have their own medics for that reason, but that's not always an option when it comes to field work."

Ao mulled this over as she fiddled with a few other vials, holding them up to the light and humming to herself before mixing them with the herbs. Bloodline limits weren't well understood by the ninja world at large so it spoke volumes about her that they were her pet project. It also said something of her position in the village. Her research probably had its roots there, which meant that she was trusted enough by those clans to poke around in their affairs.

He looked sharply back to the medic when she drew a kunai from under the skirt of her yukata, thirty years of experience instantly registering the flash of the light on steel. He frowned when, with an easy, practiced motion, she drew the blade across her right thumb and opened a deep gash. A few dribbles of blood were then added to the dish in front of her.

Haruno wiped the kunai and her hand off on a nearby rag and then grabbed a slender calligraphy brush from an ink set on her right and hopped out of her seat. She moved to the door and Ao watched as she began drawing symbols on the stone archway.

"A seal?" he asked when he realized what she was doing.

She spared him a quick glance. "Yes, actually."

He scoffed. "Any ninja worth their salt can disarm a simple protective seal."

"True," she agreed as she finished another symbol and then began to enclose the set with a border. "Good thing this one isn't simple."

She finished with a flourish and set the brush and ink aside to form a series of hand seals, her movements were slow and controlled so each seal was perfectly done. She had no sooner made the final seal than the symbols on the wall began to glow and then, to Ao's surprise, began to replicate. The lines began to creep outward like tendrils and recreate each symbol until the doorway was wreathed in them. His senses burned with another spike of chakra to his left and he turned his head to watch the exact seal begin weaving itself around the windows and doorways throughout the rest of the room.

Haruno did nothing to hide her victorious fist pump as the glow of the seals died, leaving only those she had traced in ink visible.

"Where the hell did you learn that?" Ao asked after a considerable pause.

She laughed. "A friend," she replied, sounding quite pleased. "He apparently used it to get some sleep when he was out on missions for ANBU. He taught me specifically when he heard that I was coming to Mist. He's as paranoid as Mizukage-sama."

"Paranoid?" the hunter repeated, still pondering the seal. The blood had a good bit to do with the power of the technique. Blood was often used as an activator because it was readily accessible on a battle field and insured that only the proper person could activate or deactivate the seal in question. For it to be a main ingredient in the ink, though, was something else entirely. That tied it to the user—to their chakra.

"Well, yeah," she said, folding her arms as she leaned back against the door. "I mean, she assigned me one of her own bodyguards. That's kind of extreme. I really can take care of myself."

He frowned at her, temporarily abandoning his thoughts on the seal. Was she really this dense? Or did she honestly think nothing of it? "It has nothing to do with your abilities," he replied. "Mist's and Leaf's understanding is very fragile right now. You're the Godaime Hokage's apprentice and you have connections to powerful clans and even more powerful ninja, not to mention the Kyuubi vessel—he is your teammate, isn't he? If anything would happen to you, the ramifications could be dire."

Haruno blinked at him with wide, green eyes. "Oh," she murmured. "I guess I've never really thought about it like that." She frowned thoughtfully to herself on her way back to her work table, but paused before taking her seat and turned to look at him. "For the record, they do have names."

Ao raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Uzumaki Naruto is my teammate," she elaborated, her brow furrowed and her tone strangely possessive, "And the Kyuubi's name is Kurama."

For a ninja—especially a hunter-nin—Ao had lived a very long time and in that time he had seen and heard a lot of strange things, but that single sentence topped them all. "You refer to it by _name_?" he asked.

She let out a deep, long-suffering sort of sigh. "Naruto and Kurama are two separate entities with completely separate consciences," she said and something in her tone—in her whole demeanor—radically shifted at this. "I hate it when people refer to them as one _thing_. It's fine if you don't want to acknowledge Kurama, but please don't call Naruto a vessel. He's a war hero with commendations from all five of the great villages—even Mist—and he deserves at least that much respect."

"That demon leveled your village not all _that_ long ago," Ao said, after she had already turned away from him and began to clean up her work area. "Why would _you_ ever acknowledge it?"

Haruno shrugged. "Naruto is my teammate and he's made peace with Kurama. The least I can do for him is the same."

It was said so matter-of-factly that it brooked no argument and Ao found himself frowning at her back as she continued to meticulously reorganize all of her vials and tools.

His whole life was rooted in Mist. In the academy they were taught that the only constant they'd ever have was the village and during Bloody Mist, the political unrest, the bloodline cleansings, and the betrayals, they had been right. It was part of the reason he had become a hunter-nin. Blatant attacks against Mist and the outlying villages becoming increasingly rare under Terumi Mei's rule, but back in the day there were individuals who wanted to see them all leveled. He had been eager to see that they would never have the chance.

"I'm going to change. I want to see how things are at the hospital."

Ao frowned a little and followed Haruno with his stare as she made her way into the other room. "I thought you had an assistant."

She shrugged. "I do and I trust him completely to take care of things in my absence, but he tends to lose his patience with the younger members of our squad. This visit is more to check on them than it is to check on the hospital itself."

* * *

Although others would be inclined to disagree, Sakura had a pretty good handle on her temper. At least she did when compared to her younger self. In fact, she was downright laidback in that light. Maybe it was the war. Maybe it was just a consequence of getting older. Either way, it took a good deal more than it ever had before to ruffle her feathers.

Therefore, it was significant that what Udon was telling her made her see red.

"He's been here all morning," the boy said with an agitated look directed toward an older jounin that was pacing between the beds in one of the recovery wards. He and Sakura were standing together at the far end of the room in the opened, double-doorway, their heads bowed conspiratorially. "He's a genin instructor. He brought one of his students in and he's been on the kid's case to just 'walk it off' ever since. I tried to tell him that it isn't possible to walk it off when you have lost over a fourth of your blood, but he informed me that when he wanted my opinion he'd ask for it. Do you think anyone would mind if I took him downstairs for a tour of the morgue and then stuffed him in the refrigeration unit?"

Sakura nudged Udon. Ao was right behind them, propped against the wall with his arms folded, his head ducked, his eyes closed, and not fooling her for a second because she knew that he was most definitely listening. "_Udon_."

"Go for it, kid," Ao interrupted suddenly. His eyes were opened now and he was watching the jounin in question. "He's a stain on our ranks. No one would miss him."

Sakura shot the hunter-nin a hard look before returning to Udon. "I'll take care of it."

"_You_ should be resting," he argued.

She shook her head. "I'll rest when there's time to rest."

Udon scoffed softly and leaned back against the doorway, resigned. Sakura smiled at him and then turned away. She crossed the ward to the bedside of the genin that Udon had been talking about and perched herself on the edge of the mattress.

The boy was deathly pale as he slept, which was to be expected given his condition. His wounds had been healed, so there were no bandages to check or change, and the IV bags administering fluids and blood to his system were fresh. So, she set about doing what she could by checking his blood pressure and pulse and then pushing her chakra into him to look at his organ function. When she finished, all she had left to do was tuck the blankets more firmly around him. The hospital was incredibly drafty and the air had a constant chill to it, though that seemed true for the whole of Water country. She settled her chin a little deeper into the scarf around her neck at the thought.

"Who are you?"

The voice put her to mind of gravel and she turned toward it and found herself facing the jounin that Udon had pointed out to her. He was older than her, younger than Ao, with hard, black eyes and a scar that bisected his lips. He towered over her, lean and powerful, and scowled fiercely. Maybe they taught lessons on that in Mist.

Sakura stood so that he didn't tower quite as much and placed one hand on her hip. "I'm Haruno Sakura," she said matter-of-factly. "I'm currently in charge of this hospital."

He sneered at her, at her headband and her pristine, white vest, and then looked around her to the boy. "When is he going to be on his feet?" he demanded.

"I believe my assistant already told you of his condition and what to expect for his recovery. He'll leave whenever I decide to release him."

The scowl intensified, but Sakura was unbothered. She had been scowled at plenty in her career. Scowled at, snarled at, sworn at—it didn't matter. She was old enough now to be considered a seasoned medic and she had run into every kind of unpleasantness on her way to becoming so.

"I'm his teacher," the jounin said, pointing at the unconscious boy. "It's my job to get him into fighting shape. How am I supposed to do that when you medics insist on babying him?"

Sakura pinched lips together in distaste. "Even if we were babying him, that still wouldn't be my problem. My job right now is to keep him comfortable and safe and I take that duty very seriously. Now, kindly leave; you're disturbing everyone else here."

He sneered. "You're not in any position to order me around, Leaf. I'll pull him out of bed myself if I have to."

"You'll have to get around me to do it," she replied, both hands now on her hips. "Let me make myself clear: your student is seriously ill and will not get out of that bed a second sooner than I say he will. Now, I could appreciate your enthusiasm to get him on his feet _if_ it was coming from some place other than cold, pig-headed fatuity and ignorant, out-dated ideals. Since it isn't, I'm asking you to leave before I feel forced to do something drastic to make my point."

The jounin eyed her for a long time and then he moved. Sakura reacted in the same second and when he made a grab for her arm, as if to pull her out of his way, she caught his wrist and forearm. Then, she pivoted and pushed one shoulder up and under his armpit. With his elbow joint locked and pulled across her shoulders, she used his arm as a lever and herself as the fulcrum to pop his shoulder out of socket. He shouted in pain but before he could get away she grabbed a fistful of his robe and then lifted him up off his feet and then slammed him into the stone floor, which cracked loudly on impact

Sakura dusted her hands off on her skirt and then hopped lightly over his prone and twitching form as she made her way back to Udon and Ao, both of whom had drawn kunai when the jounin had grabbed for her.

"Tell him to walk it off," she said to Udon when she reached the doorway. "Then, whenever that ceases to amuse you, scrape him off the floor and get him in a bed. I'm going to check on the ER and make sure no one's accidentally set it on fire or something."

Udon easily slipped his kunai back into its holster and then pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "You say that as if it wouldn't be an enormous improvement."

Sakura smiled and clapped him on the shoulder before retreating into the hallway. Her smile instantly faded now that she was out of view and with an anxious groan she grabbed the ends of her hair in both hands and stomped her feet. Then, remembering that Ao was probably right behind her, she turned to face him and scowled at his wry grin. "Why do you look so damn cheerful?" she wondered.

He shrugged. "Didn't know you had it in you, Leaf."

"Hey, I warned him!"

"I know."

She eyed the man as they started down the hallway together. "Why do I get the weird feeling that you're actually on my side right now?"

He actually smirked at this. "Don't get used to it."

* * *

1. First things first: WOW. Consider me totally floored by the response to this thing. Thank you guys for all of your support and reviews and just wow. I didn't expect this kind of reaction. Apparently I'm not the only crack-whore walking the streets of the archives.

2. I think I got a bit of writer fatigue by the end of this chapter just because of the sheer length. Overall I feel pretty meh about the chapter itself, which I suppose is a good thing? It's better than hating it.

3. What the FUCK is up with the manga right now? I just... I can't even! I'm not going to spoil anything for anyone, but those who have read it know exactly what I'm talking about and I just... it... I have no words! Kishi, I official enact the rights of fan discontinuity! As far as I'm concern, this never happened!  
In fact, I don't even know what I'm talking about any more!

4. Glad to get that one off my chest. ANYWAY for those of you who are fans of House Calls: you all may be curious as to what the delay could possibly be and it's simple really. Next chapter will more than likely probably be the last one, not including if I decide to add an epilogue. I think it's time to retire that horse and let her live out her days the rest of her days in the pasture. So the delay is some combination of me being busy, me being lazy, and me being hesitant because HC is a huge project of love and insanity and it's hard to let that kind of thing go.

5. Future delays: expect them. I hate it when stories go months at a time without updating and I'm not saying that that's necessarily going to be the case, BUT my situation right now is thus: my parents are not making me work right now because they've agreed to let me try to finish a novel and get it published. So right now they are supporting me completely, rent free and such, so that I can have a shot at living out my dream and oh my God they're AMAZING, you guys. Seriously, you can't get cooler than my mom and dad. It just doesn't happen. ANYWAY, that means that a lot of this fanfiction nonsense will be a bit on the back burner while I attempt to finish something original. Please, just be patient.

**All right, that's it for notes! Please review!**


	3. Medics

**For a Season  
**

**Chapter 3  
**

* * *

Ao studied people more out of habit than any genuine interest. Typically, his mind was made up about what sort of individual he was dealing with within the first ten seconds of meeting a new person and very rarely was he ever wrong. It was just experience, really. There were only so many tricks in the book and none of them were new to a man his age, so there were very few actual surprises left in the world, which he thanked the gods for because he was too old for that shit.

But occasionally something new and different did make it down the pipe and he had to give the old bastards on the other side some credit. Like Haruno. In fact, she was a lot of strange and surprising things crammed into one pretty, petite package.

It wasn't the strength, the chakra control, or the beast of a temper lying just under the pretty surface that caught him off-guard, either. Even watching her practically shake the hospital to its foundations hadn't really surprised him because if nothing else he was accustomed to powerful women with a tendency to overreact and with time he had simply learned to be prepared for those things to just happen.

Instead, it was everything else.

Mei wasn't a tender person by nature—she couldn't afford to be—and he had never known his own mother, so the way that Haruno clucked and fussed after her medics seemed, to him, a bit frivolous. This crossed a different set of lines when she started in on the Mist-nin placed under her command, something that she seemed to have taken very much to heart. They were not an hour into their first day together when one of the rowdier Chuunin assigned to her had begun making a fuss about procedures and a nearby Jounin, who had been attending to assist, had stepped in the reprimand the boy. However, Haruno interfered and stopped the strike of the older man's hand before it could land its mark.

"Thank you, Kora-san," she said politely to the fellow whose wrist she was holding captive in a delicate, fine-boned hand capable of twisting forged steel. "However that won't be necessary and please refrain from all future impulses to strike my students. They are all rational individuals and are more than welcomed to question the established mode of things in order to better grasp the subject at hand. If I cannot explain why things are done a certain way, then perhaps the way ought to be changed." With that she released his wrist and looked to the boy caught between them, who was glancing between his two elders and wearing a look of clear confusion. "Come," she said, brooking no argument. "You will help me personally with this demonstration so that you can see the method in action. The steps make more sense sometimes when you witness how they fit together as a whole."

If Kora noticed, he didn't give any indication of it, but he was young. Ao, on the other hand, saw every flash of steel the Leaf medics produced from their sleeves and belts, each of them ready to strike in defense of their leader. It wasn't just a show, either. He had seen them react similarly at the hospital toward the more aggressive patients and it had everything to do with Haruno herself and not just her position. She treated them as hers and in turn they seemed to love her with a fierce sort of protectiveness.

The weasel-faced boy with the glasses that trailed on Haruno's heels at the hospital—her assistant—was particularly odd and Ao didn't trust him. He wasn't sweet-natured like the girl or as a coddling and gentle and the hunter-nin had overheard Haruno address him directly about withholding pain medication from patients who were mistreating the Leaf staff. The boy's apology had made it clear that he was only sorry to have upset her.

However, it said something about her that she could inspire so much loyalty from her subordinates despite her inexperience as a leader. What more, was that it seemed to be catching on among the Mist-nin.

It was a small thing at first that grew quite apparent within a week. Despite everything and everyone having been thoroughly divided upon her arrival, things at the hospital had begun to take shape quickly under her direction. The complaints that had been brought up against her initially had been dropped and even her fiercest opponents had been silenced by the sharp and sudden turnaround the hospital was seeing.

One of the most notable changes was the sudden inclusion of slugs (to the revulsion of many a weak-stomached genin). Their presence was also initially protested, but that had also died a swift death and they were soon treated as part of the staff and with great respect by all of the medics. The creatures were everywhere, of all different sizes and colors, and most commonly found perched on the shoulders of medics and patients alike. They seemed to work as a hive mind and as a result the medics were that much better organized. Information was more freely exchanged, triage went faster, and men were back out onto the field quicker.

As for the woman herself, if she had been anyone else, Haruno might have simply commanded things to be done from a position at the rear. Instead, she took an active role in seeing to them personally. As easily as Ao could sever a throat, she pulled men back from the edge of death and forced the will to live back into them. He had watched it himself when she had reached into a patient's chest and with her own hand massaged his heart back into rhythm.

Despite himself, Ao had been deeply impressed. He had watched other men—some of whom he had even thought of well enough to consider comrades—die of lesser injuries. Yet the girl had done it and moved onto performing her next miracle without a second thought as one of her lessers worked to close the man's wounds.

It was that same patient he found her sitting with a few days later, smiling warmly as she massaged the back of one of his hands in a way he had watched her do to many others. To the side, a younger medic was drawing his blood and administering medication through a line in his arm.

Save for the patient and the other medic, she was alone, which was exactly the issue he wished to address. It had been a problem rearing its head with annoying frequency for the last week.

"Your guards aren't supposed to be off their shift yet," he said to her when she had stepped away to let the man rest, leaving the slug that had been perched on her shoulder behind on the bed.

"They aren't," Haruno replied, distracted as she scribbled in a folder. "They're helping in the morgue."

"Why?"

She raised an eyebrow at him, like this was somehow an unreasonable question. "Because I asked them to," she said plainly.

Ao clenched his jaw and appealed to those gods he did occasionally grace with prayers for patience. "They already _have_ orders," he replied heatedly. "They're supposed to be watching you."

"It must be exhausting to repeat that as often as you do," Haruno sighed as she turned away from him. She dropped the folder in her hands onto a stack of them within arm's reach and then twisted to pick up a tray of cups filled with pills that had just been finished being dosed out by another medic.

"It is rather tiresome," he agreed, hot on her heels.

"Then it's a wonder that you keep saying it as it has not become any more true than before," she replied, reaching out to stop a young medic from stumbling into her, without breaking her stride. She handed him the tray of pills, save for one cup she kept, as the boy chirped an apology and then darted around Ao, nearly knocking into the older man as well. "However, what is just as true as before is that I am still a war veteran, I have completed nearly thirty S-ranked missions, and I am as skilled with combat as any other jounin. I have trained with the Copy-nin, the great Senju Tsunade, and fought alongside a laundry list of exceptional ninja born of my generation." She paused at the bedside of a young genin to drop the cup of pills into his begrudgingly outstretched hand. "If you do not take those this time I will have the nurses take your temperature rectally from now on."

The genin's eyes went as wide as saucers, but Haruno didn't linger to watch him eagerly swallow the pills. Instead, she was already moving on, her pace as brisk as before as she deftly wove between all of the bodies moving through the hallways all at once, as if this were a dance she had practiced the steps to a thousand times. It was a chaotic sort of grace.

"I'm no more interested in your résumé now than I have ever been," Ao replied. "I have my orders as do the others who have been assigned to protect you."

Haruno flung out an arm to stop him from walking into the path of a gurney speeding down the hallway and then grabbed him by the front of his robe and pulled him out of the way of another one rushing up from behind. She released him just as quickly and went to stab him squarely in the chest with the point of one, dainty finger, but he caught her hand at the wrist and met her stare with a steely glare of his own. She didn't even flinch. "Those two are doing far more good in the morgue than they would be getting under my feet. They're ninja so bodies don't make them squeamish and I don't have to waste an able pair of hands capable of healing on an individual who no longer has any use for them," she said plainly. "If you cite them for disobeying orders I will appeal to Mizukage-sama myself on their behalf and that would be an even greater and more unforgivable waste of my time than this current conversation, which I would make you pay for, dearly. Speaking of wasting time, we're finished here. Either go and relieve them of their current occupation or leave them to it—you know which I prefer—but I have patients to attend."

With that, and a swish of pink hair for emphasis, she turned away and marched off into the fray and frenzy of activity filling the ward.

"Haruno-senpai is rarely out of my sight."

Ao sensed rather than saw the girl's bespectacled assistant sidle up beside him and didn't turn to acknowledge him, even when he spoke. The boy didn't seem to mind, though, and pushed his glasses further up his nose with his little finger. "She is not lying when she says she can take care of herself," he went on, unabated. "But I appreciate the precautions Mist has taken to look after her. That was wise. It limits your culpability if something would happen. Your Kage is a smart woman."

With that, he followed Haruno's path and fell into step behind his elder just in time to accept a folder she was handing off to him.

To Ao's years of experience, that somehow felt and sounded like a _threat_. No, he really didn't like that boy, he decided with a shake of his head. He didn't like medic-nins in general, he was realizing. They were walking, functioning contradictions and they fucked with the natural order of things. A person used to either kill or heal. It hadn't ever been so confusing back in the old days. Trust Leaf to make things complicated.

Rubbing at his temples, he made for the morgue. Threatening to demote _someone_ would make him feel better, surely. It was best to start with those idiots who couldn't seem to remember that their commanding officer _wasn't_ Haruno Sakura.

* * *

Outside the bustle of the hospital, Haruno was a different animal. When Ao found her later in her rooms, she was seated at the table, wearing a faded robe that was slouching off of her bare shoulders as she read, drank tea, and made notes. Without a word, she poured him a cup and motioned for him to join her because this had somehow become a routine for them. Even now, however, there was a slug present on her shoulder, a green one with darker green stripes along its back. He had seen it more than the other, usually either with the woman herself or her assistant.

It was only when he approached that he noticed the wooden statue of a toad sitting at the center of the table. It was made from a rust-colored wood and ornately detailed with special attention paid to its markings, but it was the chakra emanating from it that put him on alert. The aura surrounding it was a searing, blinding kind of red, so sharp and radiant it felt like looking into the sun. It resonated oddly with Haruno's own chakra.

"What is that?"

Haruno glanced at him and then to the toad statue. "A totem from Mount Myoboku," she replied. "I found it today among my things. It's a rare little trinket; Naruto must have snuck it into my pack. He's such a child sometimes."

He gave her a look because she had an irritating habit of not ever actually explaining herself, even when she did answer him. "What is it?" he repeated, no more hopeful this time that he would receive an actual explanation than he had been before.

She didn't look up from her book again. "Mount Myoboku is the home of the toad summons of Leaf," she replied. "Anywhere a totem is, they can appear."

"Dare I ask why it's here?"

"Naruto probably packed it so that we could stay in touch," she said with a shrug. "I should have known that he would find a way to do that after I told him that Katsuyu-sama and her descendents are not my personal messengers. By the way, Katsaimi-san that is Ao, the Mizukage's bodyguard and my companion for the duration of my stay in Mist." She motioned to the slug on her shoulder. "This is Katsaimi-san. She's in charge of the other slugs you've seen at the hospital."

Ao nodded to the slug, which waggled its feelers in reply, and then took a seat across from the girl. "They're your summons then," he said. He had suspected as much, of course. Her much-talked of master was known as the Slug Princess.

"Yes," she replied. "I don't know what I'd do without them, honestly." She patted the creature affectionately. "Go check on Udon for me, would you?"

The slug crossed its feelers in answer and then disappeared with a puff of smoke that Haruno fanned away with her book, which she then set aside. "So," she began as she lifted her tea to her lips and leveled him with a look. "About my other bodyguards."

Ao eyed her in reply. "I didn't report them," he said.

"Thank you."

"However, they are to be doing their _actual_ jobs for a week. Don't distract them."

She sighed into her teacup. "I hope you have a better reason than the usual or this is just going to be a repeat of our earlier discussion."

"They will have to do their jobs as I will not be around to pick up the slack."

Haruno frowned at him prettily. "No?" she asked.

"I have orders from the Mizukage," he answered gruffly. "It'll be just the week."

"What sort of orders?"

Ao eyed her again. "Nothing you need to concern yourself with."

Haruno replied with a musical and dismissive little hum. "I'll decide what I need to concern myself with," she said. "When are you leaving?"

"Tonight."

"Hunter-nin business?" She raised her eyebrow at his questioning look. "What else would it be?"

He shifted in his seat. "There's a fugitive that's been causing problems in the north," he said. "Thirty civilians dead this month alone."

Haruno frowned. "Why?"

"There's never a reason," Ao replied, shaking his head. "They think they're making a statement or a sacrifice, but the reality is that there's no cause good enough to excuse it. They just want to see people die and then blame it on the village, the Kage, the past." He shook his head and took a drink from the tea, frowning at leaves floating at the surface. He would have been wearier if he had not seen them in her tea as well. "He's killed three teams sent after him, too."

"It's a wonder then that you're going by yourself."

It was a question. Not on its face, but that was its purpose. He always gave credit where it was due: she was a clever girl. Always searching, always probing. A given answer wasn't as good as one found. A ninja through-and-through, medic or not. "You aren't worried for me are you, Leaf?"

He was harassing her, meaning just to rile her. If nothing else, arguing with the girl was never _boring_. But she ignored the bait. Instead, she shrugged. "I won't have anyone to fight with if you die," she replied, watching him over the rim of her cup. "I'll be bored."

Ao snorted into his tea. "Bored even with a hospital to run and an entire clutch of chicks to hen after?"

She shrugged. "Mist isn't proving to be the challenge it was lauded as. Not even for my chicks."

It wasn't arrogance, but rather pride and it looked good on her, in the set of her shoulders and her eyes. She was proud of her team and she deserved it. They were young, but they were promising, hardworking, and loyal. Even Ao respected them, in as much as he could respect anyone so young. He'd certainly dealt with less deserving jounin and lazier captains over the years.

Without a word, Haruno suddenly rose to her feet and moved toward the table she had set up to work at, where a chemistry set and various herbs and potions were placed. He had looked through a handful of the ingredients and hadn't been exactly surprised to find just as many meant to harm as to heal. Konoha medics were masters of antidotes. It made sense that they would be just as well-versed in poisonous ingredients.

She removed from one of the drawers a small package wrapped in canvas and tied tight with a thin rope. She handed it to him when she returned to the table to take her seat. "Styptic, soldier pills, and pain meds," she explained casually. "It seems to be that whenever my team leaves equipped with the proper supplies, we ultimately don't need them. Here's to hoping it works the same for you."

"I've heard of stranger superstitions," he said agreeably, tucking the package away into the fold of his robe. "At the very least they can be bartered or traded."

"Try to wait on that until after your fugitive is dead," she replied. "I bartered some pain pills once. Then one of my teammates' took a bad fall and his femur popped out of socket. You can imagine how much fun that was."

Ao smirked faintly at this and nodded. "Fair enough. What of payment?"

She waved a hand. "Consider it a part of my services here," she said. "Let me know if it works well for you. Leaf-nin are required a certain number of things with them at all times, but it doesn't seem to be the same way here. I'd like to change that, if it's possible."

He hummed. "Bandits," he offered by way of explanation. "The more you carry with you, the more of a potential target you make yourself. How much you carry depends on how comfortable you feel with possible confrontation. But something like this? It's not a bad idea."

Haruno nodded and then reached to drain her cup of tea. She set it aside just as a puff of smoke encased her arm and the slug from earlier reappeared, latched onto her forearm and waggling its feelers frantically back and forth. Whatever the hell that meant, it seemed to make sense to Haruno, who let out a long sigh and got to her feet again. "I have to go back to the hospital," she said, peeling the slug from her skin with a sickening squelch and placing it gently atop the table. "You're leaving now then?"

He shrugged. "It's as good of a time as any," he replied dismissively. "Behave, Haruno."

She laughed in reply and spared him a half smile. "Be safe, Ao."

He knew that she probably meant nothing by it, as it was simply the sort of thing she was inclined to say. But he nodded in acceptance of it anyway and transported out as she turned away to loosen her robe.

* * *

1. Short update is short, but you must all bear with me. I do not pick the length of the chapters, they pick themselves.

2. Like scabs! Sorry, I blame my ongoing battle with insomnia. For reasons, if you are curious, see the notes at the bottom of Blind Spots' chapter 4 or the latest journal entry on my DA profile.

3. If nothing else, I am a productive member of the sleepless community. With any luck this will continue for a while. God knows I'm not a productive member of any other community.

4. Welcome to my attempt at Ao's POV and for as much as I might be tempted to complain about that, I did sincerely enjoy the hell out of writing this chapter, both because his narrative voice is surprisingly easy for me to nail down and basically because of everything Sakura does. ... "Does" is one of those words that the more you look at the more confusing its spelling gets.

5. Fun fact: Slugs are true hermaphrodites possessing both male and female genitalia. During intercourse, they entangle their parts and depending on the species some biting of bits ensues to un-entangle themselves, creating one or two "females" depending on how many parties get in on the gnawing. So basically what I'm saying is that slugs are kind of horrifying little monsters all the way around.

**Reviews are love, people!**


End file.
